After having played: Ferrari Challenge, Prologue, F1:CE, Grid, Dirt2, Superstars of V8 Racing, NFS:Shift, Supercar Challenge, Superstars of V8 Racing II & F1:2010, Gran Turismo 5 was the last chance for me. Some of those games were pretty good. But none of them really gave me everything I wanted and was looking for in a racing game. And I told myself if GT5 disappoints, I'm giving up on the PS3 and moving back to PC sims, something I was reluctant to do anyway as I needed to upgrade my equipment and there is also a downside to PC sim racing that I won't get into here.
But I'm still playing GT5 and I think it's great. Fantastic actually. 👍 It's far from perfect but it's hands down, the best of the rest by a wide margin. PD really nailed what's important. The heart and soul of any racing game is it's physics engine and I think GT5 is the most realistic racing simulator I ever played on the PS3. It has the best selection of cars of ANY console racing game by a long shot. Yes I wish they were all premium, particularly because I prefer to drive in cockpit view but this is an old argument already beaten to death. It would be nice if once a month, PD would 'gift' the community an extra few premium cars. And if they're new cars, I'd be happy to pay for them through DLC. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
I'm very pleased with GT5 but it's no secret that the game suffers from a lot of small problems which could be improved with patches and bug fixes:
- The disappearing track on the Nurburgring.
- Qualifying not working properly in online races.
- To many places to corner cut and gain an advantage--something PD certainly realizes now if they didn't before.
- Workable leaderboards for every car in 'stock' form. (hopefully this will be implemented when the tracks are 'cured' of short cuts).
- A proper and workable performance point system for online racing that dynamically assigns a number to your cars for each track, depending on what options and modifications you have selected. Without this, online racing, as it stands, is a bit of a mixed bag. With it, it would be (for me) just about perfect. Personally, I could care less about player matching but I understand others want it and it should be included. Shuffle racing is GREAT option and a unique idea. I love it! But how about a way to further refine it with a 'range' of cars. We always end up with the same low end cars, over and over again.
- cockpit view or bumper view (at least for your own car) for online race replays. It works like this with B-spec so it's technically possible but perhaps limited by bandwidth. Sometimes you watch a replay to see an incident and the camera angle is so bad that you miss it!
- Fast FWD and RWD on replays. And the ability to jump right to the results screen, which also shows gaps and fastest laps at the end of the race. I mean, should we REALLY have to sit through a 15 minute or 45 minute or 3 hour replay just to see the results? Come on, this one is so obvious it isn't funny. What the HECK were they thinking?
- As it stands, there's a huge inconsistency during some races where and when cars are ghosted. Sometimes cars ghost who are on the same lap, while they're fighting for position and in no danger of hitting each other. Other times lapped cars come up who aren't ghosted and should be. The whole system is full of bugs and needs a big work through. This may seem like a minor point but for SERIOUS online championships it's a big problem.
- The ability to remove ABS as an option in an online lobby like you can for other assists. I mean, come on! Are we going to be serious racers here or a bunch of arcade mario kart drivers?
- There were rumors that we'd be able to have 32 people in the lobby: 16 racing and up to 16 spectating. This never came to pass. Perhaps it's just not technically possible: the compromising nature of the game's P2P connections, too many people with lousy connections and noisy networks, the flaky nature of the PSN. But it would be nice to have a 16 player lobby and room for people to spectate. A minor point perhaps but it would be nice.
- The AI needs to be improved. Although, I think they're probably limited in what they can do. It's just not adequate. If I go into practice mode and run a one-make race, I'm usually in front after the first lap. Even in arcade mode on the hardest level, it's not much better. I'm not exactly the fastest guy out there and I can easily run through the field like butter with all assists off. Ridiculous. The AI may be tough for noobs but for people who have been playing racing sims for a few years it's horribly lacking. They brake too early, they accelerate late--they're just plain slow. Fix it.
- I can agree that the game needs more A-spec events (for those who actually want them) but I think it's unlikely to happen. I have a feeling the seasonal events were originally intended to be A-spec events which for whatever reason (time, technical issues) didn't make the cut. So expect more seasonals.
- How about having consistent replays across the different modes. Replay in A-spec is completely different than it is in practice and Arcade mode unless you save it and watch it in replay theater. (I'm guessing this is due to memory issues with the PS3).
- Tire temperature and tire wear is a GREAT thing in this game. But how is it that all compounds wear evenly? So there's no point in tire strategy because Racing Hard and Racing Soft will wear in equal time. Booo! 👎
- An option in private lobbies to (1) password protect races and (2) only the host can start the race. I hope none of my friends are looking (
) but I now have almost 100 people on my friend list. And sometimes we're about to start a pre-arranged race, just waiting for the rest to enter and one of them, who wasn't actually supposed to be there, drops in at just the wrong moment to say 'hello'.
- We need an option like in Prologue to save an A-B-C selection for car setups. There's no way you can remember settings for every car. Please, it's not that hard. I mean, Prologue already had this, why take it away?
- I guess it's coming but how about taking the tracks we created with the track editor and letting us race them online.
- A much, MUCH improved damage model. Or at least one that's consistent. Some cars and modes show damage, some don't. Some do--occasionally. Obviously they're still working on it. At least mechanical damage works. 👍 Although there are some strange inconsistencies there as well. Sometimes, even after your car is repaired in the pits (with heavy damage turned on) your car will lose pace and you simply can no longer crank out the same laps as you could before. I don't know if this is done on purpose or if it's a bug. But this brings me to my next point.
- PD need to open up. It's 2011. They have a huge game with a world wide following. They need their own website with interaction where they can CLEARLY explain things like the above to the public. Let us know. We don't want to guess. Tell us what's going on. Come out with an FAQ--online feels different not because the physics model is different but because the game takes fuel load, tire temperature and tire wear into the equation. It would solve SO much hair pulling. And it would provide a common ground to report bugs. Look how quickly PD acted with GT Academy when these bugs were made public. There are MANY such bugs in the game, only some of which I've mentioned. Fixing even half of these would be a boon.
This now sort of moves away from what PD in my opinion SHOULD do to improve and fix the game and now goes into what they could do. DLC. Paid for. I know everybody wants more cars. And yes, there are some cars (premium of course) that I'd like myself. A 1958 Ferrari 250 TR for starters. But we all have our favorites. What I think is a larger issue is where we take those cars. And it could also use some more (real world) tracks. Not being a traditional GT player on the PS1/PS2, I never had much penchant for GT's home brew tracks. And frankly, from the ones I've seen in GT5, I think they're all completely AWFUL: Trial Mountain, Deep Forest, Grand Valley, Cape Ring--horrible. HSR & Eiger are passable but rather uninteresting. So while the game needs some more tracks, I hope PD will come to their senses if DLC packs are forthcoming and consider Spa or Hockenheim or Imola or Kayalami or Road America or Mont Tremblant or Goodwood, and many others, and not just their original tracks that so many GT traditionalists are asking for.
The game does so much right. And they really nailed what's important. With a slew of what I consider very small, very minor tweaks, it could be just about perfect. 👍
Hardly. I'd like AI that can actually race you instead of just being moving chicanes. They're not programed for maximum pace. They're programmed to slow you down.
